June 1, 2009

GAZA, (PIC)-- The government committee for breaking the siege on Monday warned that a large number of water wells in the Gaza Strip stopped operating due to the Israeli siege that led to the absence of equipment and spare parts needed for the maintenance of pumps and generators.

In a press statement received by the PIC, head of the committee Hamdi Sha’at said that more than 800 water wells out of 2,000 in different parts of Gaza were rendered unoperational or destroyed during the last Israeli war.

Sha’at expressed concern about the negative impacts that might result from the stop of additional water wells on agricultural production and livestock in Gaza.

He appealed to the FAO to urgently intervene to pressure Israel to open Gaza crossings before equipment and spare parts needed to re-operate the wells.

In another context, the Palestinian health ministry reported Monday, in a statement received by the PIC, that the victims of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza rose to 340 patients after the death of a 53-year-old citizen called Ahmed Al-Sayed who suffered from a chronic heart disease

The statement said that the patient was in urgent need for a surgery to repair coronary arteries of his heart, but the Israeli siege prevented him from traveling outside Gaza to get medical treatment abroad in addition to the absence of special medical appliances used to perform such surgeries in Gaza.